Mine Iron Heart
by psychobabblers
Summary: The life and trials of a  former  Dark Lord of the Sith on the run from an empire with several immature young Jedi and their slightly-older-but-still-immature Jedi Master, who just might be the love of his life. Part 2 of my Star Wars AU 'verse.
1. The Perils of Shopping

_A/N: This is a companion piece to my fic _"Left and Right," _with ficlets from Erik's point of view (so they will probably make more sense if you read that one first). I debated for a while whether to upload them in interludes as chapters, but decided it would be too confusing as they won't be written in order and are not vital to the main plot. So I'll just be stuffing them in here as I write them, with a few words to show where they take place in accordance with the timeline in _Left and Right_, and will mark this as complete because each is essentially a one-shot from the 'verse. __Hope you enjoy these little glimpses into Erik's mind! (Also, if anyone would like a specific scene written from his point of view or a "missing" scene that's referenced by the characters, I will be happy to take requests, although writing the main storyline will take precedence over these ficlets)._

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><p>Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,<br>And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.  
><em>~ John Donne's Holy Sonnets<em>

**...**

The young Jedi don't trust him, Erik knows. Not that he cares, particularly, but Charles had asked him would he please stop being quite so 'dark lord of the Sith all the time and try to get along with others. Well he never could resist Charles when he's being oh so sincere and _lightside_, and he'd agreed despite his vague annoyance (and misgivings) at the request.

He hadn't been about to let a bunch of teenage Jedi intimidate him.

So earlier that morning when Erik had suggested with fake but possibly passable enthusiasm that they go for a walk around the city, Charles had said, with disgustingly real enthusiasm, weren't you just saying you wanted to go sightseeing, Raven, and wouldn't it be nice if there was some team bonding time.

And he'd wrangled grudging agreements from all of them before starting out the door.

"And where are you going?" Raven had demanded.

"Oh I have meetings all day long," Charles had replied cheerfully. "In fact I'm late for my 9:00! But have fun without me!" and then the insufferable man had disappeared, leaving the rest of them staring at each other, or rather, the Jedi and Erik staring at each other, with identical expressions of horror.

Which is why he's now resignedly walking with a group of young Jedi who have absolutely no sense of maturity or discipline.

It's exhausting to shop, Erik realizes. And they haven't even bought anything, just wandered around, Raven and Angel trying on outfits and asking for each other's opinions while the boys had cast barely hidden looks of suspicion at him.

"Block me for a sec," Raven demands, and Erik watches in consternation as she shifts through several forms to see which one looks best with the pair of sunglasses she's wearing when she's mostly out of sight within their group.

"Which do you think?" she asks, looking at herself this way and that. She slips back into her natural blue form. "Whoops," she mutters.

"This one," Erik says without thinking, because why does it matter what she looks like anyway, it's not like _she's_ any different, and does not flush (because whoever had heard of a Sith Lord doing that anyways) when Raven studies him.

"Thanks," Raven says thoughtfully. Her skin ripples back to her favorite blond form.

And the group moves off again. They continue to walk aimlessly and never buy anything, and the boys continue to toss a suspicious look his way every so often, just like they've been doing for the past five hours. But it feels different somehow.

They've just bought ice cream when a group of teenage boys approach them.

"Oh shit," Hank mutters.

"Hey!" one of them shouts. He's the leader, Erik thinks. Poor fighting stance, more for show than actual defense or attack. Too much weight on the right leg, easy to unbalance. Overconfident demeanor, large group of minions, most likely untrained, easy to knock out and scare the rest of the thugs away.

"Bigfoot!"

Hank hunches his shoulders. "Come on Hank," Darwin says, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah just ignore them," Sean says.

"I thought I told you not to come back when they took you away to the temple of freaks," the boy taunts. His group jeers at them.

Erik looks at the young Jedi. Raven is annoyed but trying to act nonchalant, as is Angel. Alex has his fists clenched, while Darwin has a hand on his arm, calmly restraining him. Sean has crossed his arms. They've shifted so Hank is mostly blocked from view. Defensive formation, surprisingly, when they're obviously the more powerful group.

Raven yelps when her form slips into blue for a moment.

"Freak!" the leader laughs, pointing at her. The other passersby hurry by, averting their gazes.

Suddenly Erik is pissed off.

_Erik?_ He feels a worried touch on his mind.

_I'm fine Charles_, he thinks back. _Just keep your mind on your meeting._

Raven's eyes are narrowed and now Angel is restraining her.

"Come on guys," Darwin says. "They're not worth it."

They've turned to leave, Erik swallowing his fury (he had told Charles he would play nice even if it's galling not to wipe the smirks off their faces when he can kill them all in different ways from where he stands even despite the power dampener), when one of the teenagers, emboldened by their retreat, throws a rock at them. By the time Darwin's whirled to block the rest of the Jedi, Erik's already standing in front of them. The rock hovers about an inch from his mouth.

"An iron rich planet," he murmurs appreciatively. Iron's a good metal. Eager to please and easy to mold.

The teenagers, for some reason, but most likely blatant stupidity, decide to continue to pelt them with rocks. Erik stops them all.

There are other people staring now. Whispering and pointing. Even a man in the yellow of the police, watching uninterestedly from the side of the street. And none make a move to intervene.

People are all the same, Erik thinks bitterly. Standing by and doing nothing because it doesn't affect them. It's none of their business if a bunch of _freaks _get attacked for buying ice cream.

He's done his share of standing by as well, Erik knows. All those years under Shaw's fist. All those atrocities he'd committed. He'd been too weak to stand up to him then. Too afraid. "Never again," he murmurs to himself, swearing to himself. He'll never be weak again. He'll never stand by again and do nothing.

The mocking teenagers don't know what hit them. Neither do the outraged men who join in, yelling insults.

He's knocked out about thirty or so, just gentle taps really, they'll be up and walking in a day or two, no problem—except for that one asshole, he'll probably need a month—when he's hit by a blaster rifle at the lowest setting. It seems the useless policeman has finally decided to become useful.

Just not to Erik.

Erik drops like a puppet whose strings've been cut.

The rest of the brawlers are shot after a pause, almost like an afterthought, and it's certainly enough time for them to give him a whole new set of bruises and possibly a cracked rib or several.

The young Jedi are gone, he notes woozily as he's dragged to his feet and shoved into a truck. He's glad they're not stupid enough for pointless heroics. Perhaps there's some hope for these Jedi after all.

He just hopes that Charles won't be too disappointed in him.


	2. Waiting in the Cold

_A/N: Set at the end of Chapter 2 of Left and Right, if you can't already tell xP. Erik pov is lots of fun to write!_

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><p>Erik is annoyed.<p>

He's been on his best behavior this past week as Charles so politely requested, but continuing to stay here in the serene Jedi temple where he's as out of place as a Wookiee in a china shop is driving him…well to the Dark side, as the Jedi would say.

Anyways, the point being that Erik is annoyed, and when he's annoyed, things tend to blow up and people who offend him tend to mysteriously vanish.

He doesn't think Charles would take well to either.

Of course, he doubts that Charles would take well to his sitting in Charles's bed in the early hours of the morning either, but hey, he'd probably also agree it's a better situation than say, body disposal for that blasted self-righteous _Councilman_ he'd met today.

Erik amuses himself by floating the hangers out of Charles's closet and bending them into little metal sculptures. He's set up an entire little zoo of tiny metal animals by the time the clock strikes 3 o'clock in the morning and is particularly proud of his recreation of the five-limbed zillo beast, an extremely elusive creature that had lived on the planet Malastare before he'd, uh, removed it from the endangered species list.

Permanently.

Erik hurriedly crumples it into a wire ball when he remembers that little fact. He looks around Charles's room and then picks up the book on the nightstand, leaving the metal zoo to run on its own with a hand waving idly in the air.

Of course Charles being Charles, he doesn't notice any of this as he staggers into his room looking half-dead and makes a beeline for the bed. He stops short, swaying slightly and wide-eyed gaze bloodshot, when he realizes Erik's sitting in it.

Erik waits for a greeting but Charles just sort of stands there blinking blearily, a confused frown creasing his forehead. He'd prepared what he would say if Charles yelled or was embarrassed. He'd prepared for many a situation, actually, as Charles had been running rather late. But he finds that he had never considered Charles would simply stand there gaping.

Finally, Erik says, "You overwork yourself Charles." Just to prompt some sort of reaction from him really. Also, it would be rather embarrassing if his first real attempt at seducing Charles ended up with him falling asleep and falling over.

What happens is a little better than his mentally constructed scenario, Erik supposes. Charles sheds his clothes in a winding line to his bed—not for the reason Erik would like—drags on sleepwear, though Erik doesn't know why Charles even bothered seeing as how he couldn't even keep his eyes open, and collapses onto the bed, managing to fall on top of Erik's legs, which prompts an undignified "Oomph" from him.

_The best laid plans of mice and men…_ Erik thinks as he stares down at Charles's softly snoring form. He can't bring himself to regret the change of plans though.

His legs start to go numb after a couple of minutes, but he doesn't really want to move. Charles's bed is quite comfortable, almost exactly the same as his, but Charles's bed with Charles in it is practically irresistible. And warm. It won't matter if Erik just closes his eyes for a second or two…

He jerks awake at 4 o'clock, hearing the chimes of the clock tower reverberate through the still air. He lies there, unmoving, wondering what people would say if they found them like this in the morning and gives a soft chuckle.

Extracting his legs from under the covers without waking Charles is difficult, Erik finds. But Erik has assassinated countless monarchs, hunted draagax on the grasslands of Relkass, stretched metal into wire so thin that a single breath would shatter them—getting out of bed should prove no real challenge to him.

He's swearing softly by the time he finally succeeds in standing. Erik looks down at Charles sprawled out on the bed and feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He carefully rearranges Charles into a better sleeping position and tucks the covers in, feeling slightly foolish as he does so, but unwilling to give up his chance at this indulgence.

Erik pauses at the doorway to dismantle his zoo and re-form the metal into hangers—Charles needs hangers more than he needs metal animals in cages—before leaving, feeling suddenly exhausted. He slips under the covers of his own bed and shivers from the cold, remembering with a pang the nice, warm bed he'd just left.

He wonders if Charles will even remember this in the morning.


	3. Mistakes

_A/N: Thanks to Darkyu for giving me the idea to write this! _

_With a bonus teaser for the ending!_

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><p>The first time Erik meets Charles, he's not very impressed. <em>Sloppy, sloppy<em>, he muses, studying the sabotaged generators. They're still smoking from the burn marks on them, obviously from a lightsaber. He walks in a slow circle around them, aware of the planet's ambassador eyeing him nervously from a good couple of feet away. Erik can taste the man's fear in the Force. Sharp and surprisingly sweet, like honeyed waves rolling off of him.

He likes it.

A nervous shuffle of feet behind him has him turned around in a flash. The ambassador coughs. "Would your Lordship like some refreshments? A drink perhaps?"

Erik relaxes and tenses again when Emma sweeps into the room. "His _Lordship_ will not," she announces. A flash of anger comes over him and vanishes. Erik keeps his face expressionless, but he catches her smirk.

She waves imperiously for him to follow her and he sullenly falls into step beside her. "Calm your mind, Erik," she snaps. He realizes that the metal fixings on the walls are trembling violently as they pass and stills them with an effort.

"What is it that you wanted?" Erik asks coldly.

Emma's eyes gleam for a moment. "Jedi," she says simply.

Erik glares. "I know."

"No," she says, gleeful even though her face remains impassive. "It's the telepath."

Erik sucks in a sharp breath. Shaw had suspected there was another telepath in the known galaxy, but here? Now?

_Capture the telepath at all costs_, Shaw had commanded when he had first begun to suspect.

They had a new set of orders now.

**…**

Erik feels the touch of an alien mind on his as he's walking back to the ship. He recognizes the touch of a telepath immediately, for all that it's so different from Emma's touch that he almost doubts whether this is really the person they're looking for. Shaw had named the hypothetical telepath the Number One Most Wanted, but this person, whoever he or she is, doesn't seem like much of a threat. The touch had been soft, for one thing. Gentle. Emma's mind is all cold lines and frigid diamond, terrifying in its icy disdain.

This telepath's mind feels warm and kind. Hopeful and beautiful. But there is no mistaking the power behind that light touch. Erik shudders as he thinks about how Shaw will take that mind and break it, grind it under his heels and build a new one out of the dust and Darkness. He wonders how long it will take for the telepath to give in, for hope to fail.

He closes his eyes and reaches for the Force, sending out his power to search for metal that doesn't belong. _There_. A small ship, nestled behind an outcropping of rock, the metal of it foreign to this world. Time to put on a show.

Erik throws back his shoulder and puts an arrogant swagger to his walk. Metal whips wildly in a tornado of sharp edges around him as vehicles and buildings are pulled apart. The ship takes off and Erik watches it thoughtfully for a second until he can no longer see it.

Then he stretches out a hand and _pulls_. The ship comes crashing back to the ground.

"Open the door," he says mildly, with just a trace of menace in it to tell the ship's occupants that it would be a very, very bad idea not to obey.

It opens.

Erik steps in confidently, senses screaming at him to be careful with a telepath and two other Force-sensitives in the confined space. He casually places a hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, watching as their expressions tighten. The scent of fear is heavy in the Force.

"I'm looking for the telepath," he tells them, looking over each of them carefully. He doubts it's the young blonde one; he's been sending out waves of helpless anger ever since Erik had stepped in. The telepath's mind had been much calmer than that. But both the other men seem like they could be the one.

"Me," the dark-skinned man—more of a boy, really—says. The blonde one clenches his fist. "I'm the telepath."

Suddenly, the man sitting behind them falls out of his chair with a cry. He looks up with blue eyes fogged with pain, staring at a point past Erik's shoulder. His eyes would be stunning if he smiled, Erik thinks irrationally.

"That one," Emma says, nodding at the man sprawled on the floor at his feet. "He's the telepath." Erik feels his heart sink, though he had known that the man was the telepath the moment he had seen his face. Stormtroopers clank in behind him and the two other Force-users raise their hands.

_There's no point disobeying Shaw's orders_, Erik tells himself as he turns to leave. No one could defeat Shaw, and there's nothing to gain by trying—only pain.

A hoarse voice stops him. "Wait." He turns around to see that the man had pushed himself onto his feet. "You're not taking them."

"You're hardly in a position to make demands, sugar," Emma sneers.

The man steps forward, ignoring the stormtroopers raised rifles and the hissed protests from his team. Despite himself, Erik feels a faint thread of admiration.

"You're not taking them," the man says instead, staring hard at Erik.

"No?" Erik asks, lifting an eyebrow though he knows the man can't see it through his mask.

"No," he says firmly, not backing down when Erik pins him with a flat stare. Against his better judgment, Erik considers, for a moment, obeying his wishes. Shaw would be murderous if he finds out that Erik had let two Force-users go. _When_ he finds out. Erik has no doubts as to whose side Emma is on and knows she'd probably snitch on him as soon as Shaw is back in her range. But the man is still meeting his gaze, clear blue eyes asking him—not begging, not pleading, not ordering, _asking_—to let his team go.

It seems a moment and pretty blue eyes are all it takes for him to inspire him to break Shaw's conditioning.

"Very well," Erik says, trying hard not to think of the consequences of this moment, and concentrating on the relieved look in the man's eyes. "Release them."

"What do you think you're doing?" Emma demands, her voice freezing everyone in his tracks. "Shaw said—"

"Shaw said to bring him the telepath," Erik interrupts coolly. "He didn't say anything about his companions." As if Shaw would think of it that way.

Emma seems to be thinking along the same lines. "I don't even know why I'm bothering," she says, and Erik is wondering that too. "On your own head be it. I'm out." He watches her stalk out, snarls under his breath and follows.

A stormtrooper jogs over with a Force-suppression collar. Something in Erik tightens at the sight of it, flashes of memories best left forgotten, buried deep in the darkness of his mind. He feels the telepath's fear when he returns holding the collar; it twists something inside him and makes him wish that there's a different way. _You could always free him_, a voice goads him. _But you're a coward. You'd never do it._

And damn himself but Erik doesn't. Instead, he clenches his teeth and snaps it around the man's neck, perhaps a bit more brutally than he intended, pretending not to hear his gasp of shock nor notice his stagger.

On the way to the ship, he finds himself watching the man. It unnerves him, Erik knows, to feel his gaze on him; he keeps glancing hesitantly over his shoulder and looking away quickly when their eyes meet. He shudders violently, once, when they step onto the ship. That great hulking, horrible piece of metal. Erik hates it, hates being near it, hates feeling it respond to his command. The metal sings in an ugly voice, seeped in the Dark and reveling in the screams that echo in its bowels.

A cry of pain breaks him out of his thoughts. With a start, he realizes that it had come from the telepath who's stumbled into a wall. He watches the stormtroopers attempt to drag him back onto the walk and asks, "What's wrong with him?"

"The collar," Emmas says, appearing behind him. "For a telepath, the cutoff can be…jarring."

Erik watches the man moan with terror and steps forward before he realizes what he's doing, ignoring Emma's "What are you doing?"

He kneels down to where the man is curled up on the floor and strips off the glove on his right hand. He touches his index and middle finger to a warm cheek, hesitating for the briefest of seconds before contact. Erik feels the world spinning around him and he instinctively reaches out for the solid presence of the metal around him. The man goes still, breath coming in harsh pants.

Erik gets out of there as fast as he can, trying to ignore Emma's taunts and not quite succeeding, wanting to avoid the telepath and the feel of his mind. But he can't bring himself to stay away.

He knows he's made a mistake talking to the man—_Charles —_ when he beams at him after Erik tells him his name. Erik feels the Darkness in his soul cringe for a second at the brightness in that smile and for the first time in years, it releases its hold on him a fraction. But it's enough, it's more than enough, that small taste of freedom from the Dark, from himself. He can't let that feeling slip away. He needs it. He needs Charles, the man chained and in agony just a few minutes ago, smiling at him.

It's a mistake, his instincts scream at him. He needs to turn around and leave. But his face remain planted on the ground, unable to move away.

It's a mistake, he repeats to himself later, Charles's screams cutting deep into him. His head pounds with agony from listening. But he can't stop listening.

It's a mistake, he thinks to himself as he frees Charles, as they flee.

"It was a mistake," Shaw says to him, down to him, from where he's gasping on his knees, arms wrapped around his stomach. He kicks him and sends Erik sprawling, pain rippling through him. Shaw laughs as he picks up Erik's new lightsaber, the one had built with Charles. _Charles, falling, his rage._ He can taste blood in his mouth and his body is on fire with the cuts and burns of Shaw's lightsaber, but he's alive. If there's pain, he's still alive.

But he can't feel Charles in his mind anymore. His mind is all his own again. There's a Charles-shaped hole in his pounding heart and he can't stand it, he won't stand it.

"Admit it was a mistake," Shaw says quietly, listening to Erik scream as he drives the burning blade into his shoulder.

He had thought it was a mistake as well. "Love is never a mistake," Erik says, summoning his lightsaber to him and Shaw's as well. He staggers to his feet. "And if it is, well," Erik says, watching as Shaw's eyes widen at his suddenly empty hand, "I've never been your best student anyways."


	4. Bending Gates

_A/N: I'm still working on the next chapter of Left and Right, but sometimes Erik insists on having a chapter of his own xD._

_Takes place while they're escaping from the planet and Erik needs to bend a fence that's blocking the alley they're in._

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><p>Erik steps forward and grips the steel on the door. The metal thrums under his touch, barely perceptible, but he can feel their molecules trembling from his power. Just out of reach. It's impossible, what Charles is asking him to do. Once he could have complied easily, with barely a thought involved, but now, now the power slips away from his touch and not even a single atom will move for him.<p>

It's impossible—but Charles is asking and Erik can't refuse. Won't fail him.

If he looks up, he'll see the Jedi and that Councilwoman who is apparently tagging along. He'll see Charles. And he'll see the fear written in every line of their bodies, even if they're trying to stay calm and not distract him. It's not really working though; Erik can feel the blood thundering in his ears, his heart pounding furiously and unwanted memories resurfacing.

_"Just move the coin, Erik."_ Erik shudders and shoves at the metal futilely, snarling soundlessly. _"Just move the coin."_

He catches the elusive edge of his power as it thrashes and burns him. The Force has nothing to say to him, doesn't want to listen, but he grits his teeth, digs in his heels and _yanks_. And he can feel it now, like the first weak ray of sunlight on his face after leaving a dead sun world.

Erik waits for a little pool of power to form before he carefully starts to mold the metal under his hands; if this is all the Force that he has available to him, then finesse will be much more important than brute force. What was it that Charles had said about serenity?

There's a sudden burst of sounds that breaks him out of his concentration. Booted feet. That patrol of stormtroopers they had passed earlier. If they walked by, they would surely find the little group huddled at the end of the alley. Erik tenses. He's no use to anyone in a fight right now and somehow he doubts that Charles and his Jedi had ever fought in a skirmish against a group of opponents even as small a group as this one.

But the footsteps stop before they reach the mouth of the alley and Erik almost wants to go after them now, even if he only has a rather tenacious grasp on the Force right now. No matter; he can still take most of them out, he's sure, if he reaches for the Dark. But that would leave whatever soldiers he missed as well as all the rest of the stormtroopers and Sith on the planet for Charles to deal with. Erik glances up and catches a glimpse of Charles's worried, pinched look. The call of the hunt and promise of blood drains out of him and he slumps a little.

He hates backing down.

"Erik?" Charles says. _What is the matter?_

Erik presses his forehead against the cold, unyielding metal. This is happening because of him. Charles's work, his home, had been destroyed because of Erik. But he could still save them, if only he could do something as simple as opening a hole in the fence. _Useless. _

But he can't tell Charles that. _Nothing's the matter_, he replies, and puts Charles out of his mind as best he can.

The worried look on Charles's face stays in his mind though as he pours as much energy into the metal as he dares. Trying to make it _work._ Why won't it work?

He opens his eyes to find that the metal has bent outwards a little and he realizes that this isn't going to work. He can already feel the dullness of exhaustion licking at the edges of his consciousness and it's not going to work, and they'll be captured, and—and Erik will not go back to Shaw ever again. He'll never let Shaw hurt Charles again.

"I've tried it your way, Charles," he mutters. Well, kind of, anyways. "Now for something that works."

Erik calls up the memory that's guaranteed to give him the rage he needs, the one that's been weighing heavily on his mind this ever since they had stepped into the alley and found themselves blocked by a fence.

_The music, loud and dim at the same time. Shaw—the emperor—staring down at him, a kindly look on his face._

_"That's all I want from you," he says, smile still fixed on his face, eyes intent on Erik's._

_Erik looks at the little piece of metal on the palm of his hand, puts his disbelief aside, and concentrates. He shoves at the metal._

Erik shoves at the metal, and he feels it creak. He doesn't dare look up, because if he does, he knows that he will find Charles's eyes on him, filled with hope.

_He looks up when the metal doesn't move, looks over to where his mother is looking at him, confusion, desperation, and hope wavering in her eyes. I believe in you, her look says._

_Erik looks away, the weight of her hope hard on his chest. He clenches his teeth and wills the coin to move._

So Erik ignores Charles's eyes, and the horrible, horrifying hope in them, the ever-present hope that Charles hasn't yet realized counts for _nothing_. He feels a growl escaping from his tightly clenched teeth and wills the coin—fence—to move.

_It doesn't._

The metal bends furiously under his touch, writhing, wanting to escape his power but he doesn't let it, forces it to mold to his will.

_The emperor sighs heavily, as if he hadn't really wanted to do this, but Erik had forced him into it. "This is what we're going to do." Erik shoots a terrified look at his mother, but all she has to offer him is love and hope._

_Love won't move the coin. Hope won't move the coin. Only Erik can. Except Erik can't._

Erik gasps and distantly feels the metal bending, the molecules realigning to where he wants them to be.

_"I'm going to count to three," Shaw says, pulling out a blaster. Points it at Erik's mother. Erik feels a sudden urge to beg, to throw himself at Shaw's mercy, but he already is, and there's no mercy to be found in his cold smile. "Now, Erik," Shaw says pleasantly. "Move the coin for me."_

Metal twists under his fingers, moving far faster than the mere trickle of power Erik is using should allow it to.

_"One." Erik concentrates, but the coin doesn't move._

The metal is moving easily under his power now, and his rage is towering higher than he can remember. Uncontrollable.

_"Two." Erik looks at his mother desperately. I'm sorry, he wants to say, but his voice remains as frozen as the coin is._

Erik still refuses to look at Charles. If he does, all will be ruined. His rage won't stand in the face of Charles's disappointment at his use of the Dark side. And Erik knows the danger; he can sense the glee of the Dark in having Erik in its grasp again, even through his almost nonexistent connection with the Force.

But if the price for Charles's life is him slipping a little more down the steep slope to the Dark claiming Erik as its slave forever, Erik finds that he cannot refuse.

_Three— Erik doesn't hear the shot ring out, but he does hear his mother's gasp of surprise before she hits the ground. It's the last thing he hears before the fury overtakes him and he finds himself standing with the emperor clapping him on the back like he's done something marvelous in an utterly destroyed room._

The fence explodes outwards and Erik barely manages to catch it before it clangs into the ground. They hurry through the hole he's created for them in the fence and he takes a moment to put the fence back together. It doesn't really look like it had before when he's done fixing it up as best he can, but he can't do careful and neat when his rage fills his vision with red.

_Erik looks at where his mother had been standing. She—the body—is gone, but the blood remains._

The fury drains out of Erik in a rush, leaving him swaying slightly and feeling ashamed. He doesn't look at any of them as they ask if he's alright and follows them when they start moving. He doesn't look back at the wrecked fence brokenly put back together.

He's done it, done what Charles had asked him to do, and they're almost free, almost out of Shaw's grasp, but he can't dispel the bitterness that lingers deep in the dark shadows of his heart.


	5. Coward

_A/N: Oh wow, it's been awhile hasn't it. *sheepish grin* I do love this 'verse though, so here's a short little ficlet for you._

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><p>Erik's known the location of the temple for awhile now. It's one of the first things he had done when they arrived and he could slip away without someone watching. They're suspicious of him, and by they, he means everyone and their droid. Everyone except Charles. So it's good, Erik thinks, even as he's moving stealthily along the walkway, successfully avoiding the few people he encounters, that Charles has people to watch out for him.<p>

The man is much too trusting for his own good.

Erik's jumpy and unsettled as he hasn't been on a covert operation in years while he does some hasty research that night. He returns to his room, the knowledge of a simple location weighing heavily on his heart.

Shaw would expect the information soon. Perhaps he's already impatient, annoyance at Erik's failure gripping his heart in a black rage.

_Coward_, the Darkness whispers as it wraps around him, choking him. _Coward._

And as he stands shadowed in the archway, watching Charles laugh with his sister, his eyes bluer than any jewel, Erik agrees with the Dark. _I am a coward_, he thinks, as Charles notices Erik and brightens, ignoring the annoyed look Raven throws at him and going over to draw Erik into their conversation, his voice more beautiful and more dangerous than the humming dance of a lightsaber duel.

_I am a coward_, he repeats, just because he knows it's true. _But not for the reason you think._

Charles is smiling at him, open and unreserved, his gaze warm and affectionate, and Erik can't understand why, doesn't know how Charles can stand there and smile and act like he actually likes a man responsible for the deaths of millions. He invites Erik to lunch. Erik really shouldn't accept, he should really sort out the complicated, annoying, burning _feelings_ thudding in his chest, but Charles is still smiling and Erik can't resist that smile even if prudence and self-preservation instincts scream at him to refuse.

The information that Shaw seeks is a hollow coldness in the pit of his stomach. He should tell Charles, remind him of Shaw's orders.

He should tell Charles…

Erik shouldn't take Charles's outstretched hand, but he does.

_Coward_, the Dark whispers to him, laughing.


End file.
